How-To Guide: Dancer
Dancing with the Stars Dancer is a unique new job with the ability to both solo and party with great ease. It's a great support-role job for a party that can heal, enfeeble, and grab attention all without the use of MP. Instead, it uses TP. Dancer is open to a wide variety of neat tricks that no other job can do, such as increase the power of a weapon skill, or open a skillchain without using any weapon skill or blood pact. In small parties, or especially while duoing, Dancer can keep hate using an ability that's like Provoke but slightly weaker. Dancer also gets the ability to Cure, Curaga, and Erase quite effectively. Debuffs like Evasion-down, Defense-down, and Magic Defense-down can all be used numerous times to stack the effect, and give you Finishing Moves that can be used to perform a Provoke-like ability and many others. Dancer also gets a line of abilities that give everyone attacking the monster additional Drain, Aspir, or Haste effects that can help mages when fighting monsters that use area effect attacks like Bomb Toss. Potent, pretty, and powerful, Dancer made itself right at home in the parties of Vana'diel. Please note: This is only a guide. Please add anything if it is needed, and take away anything that is either untrue or not needed. Job-Race Combinations Please note that race is the absolute last thing you should worry about when picking a job. Anything said here is seriously exaggerated. A single piece of gear can often make up for a race's negligible lack in a stat. Every race also gets "Race Specific Equipment", or "RSE", that will boost a race's stats to equal to, or possibly even surpassing other races. Hume * Dancer requires many stats, so Hume doesn't have any problem dancing. High strength is needed for high damage, so higher-defense targets will still give TP. Dexterity and agility are needed stats as well, for landing hits and avoiding them. Charisma also plays a role with Dancer, at least with the Waltzes. Hume has ample charisma as well as vitality (which is needed when a Dancer cures him or herself), so a Hume Dancer can heal for a good amount of HP. Dancer can deal damage and tank, allowing for Hume’s well-rounded strength, agility, vitality, and dexterity to be played well. Elvaan * Elvaan also make great dancers. With their massive strength, they won't hit for zero damage on high-defense monsters as often as other races, meaning TP gain won't take a large hit either. The Elvaan's naturally low dexterity may hinder consistent hits for Sambas and TP gain, but since Dancer itself has such high dexterity, it's hardly noticeable. And if it bothers you any, there's plenty of dexterity and accuracy-boosting equipment out there. Elvaan have lower agility, which means less evasion and parries, but they also have good charisma and vitality meaning they can heal themselves for a good amount through Waltzes. Truly a great Dancer tank. Tarutaru * These little guys are on the other end of the spectrum than Elvaan. They have high dexterity and agility, but the lowest strength in the game, and the same vitality as a Mithra. This means high hit rate and evasion, but low damage output and survivability. Through gear however, this isn't even noticeable. Like Elvaan and Humes, Tarutaru share immense charisma, meaning they can heal for more with Waltzes, and with their ability to land most of their hits, they can use Dancer abilities much more frequently than their larger counterparts. With high evasion and lots of higher-curing Waltzes, Tarutaru can tank just as well as any other, and make superb Dancers. Dancer Tarutarus can also work very well as a damage-dealer in parties most effectively. Mithra * Much like their Tarutaru team mates, they have low strength and vitality, but have the highest dexterity and agility in the game, allowing you to maintain steady strikes. Mithra Dancer tanks won't have any trouble avoiding hits or landing them for lots of TP gain. Unfortunately, Mithra don't get high charisma, which leads to slightly lower Waltz potency. On the other hand, there is so much charisma-boosting gear out there (+6 CHR on Corsette +1 alone, plus RSE and other fine pieces) that the loss is negligible. Mithra strength also isn't as high as that of a Galka or Elvaan, but hitting for less doesn't mean much unless fighting highly defensive monsters. Galka * Few things are as awesome (or odd, depending on your view) as a massive Galka twirling around performing Jigs, Waltzes, and Sambas. They take tanking to a whole new level with their highest combined vitality and HP in the game. Strength can also play a role in weapon damage and steady HP drain as long as the hits land. Their Waltzes only bring in an average load to HP, as they have low charisma. The low charisma can be made up by RSE and other charisma-boosting pieces of equipment like the Corsette plus 1. A Galka may be tough, but he can't evade like a Mithra or Tarutaru. Because of this, you might want to also look into some agility boosting equipment to dodge better, and dexterity boosting gear to allow you to land hits as you might need to refill your large HP pool more frequently than others. All in all, they size up equally amongst all the races in the role of Dancer. Equipment Choices Weapon * Dancers can use Hand-to-Hand, Sword, and Dagger weapons. Though Dagger is their highest skill, it's not a very good weapon choice early in the game. Since Hand-to-Hand and Sword are both equal in skill level for Dancer, subbing Monk (for the addition of the Martial Arts job trait) and using Hand-to-Hand may be better. However, after Lv.25, your party leaves the high-defense monsters like Crabs and Pugils alone and goes back to weaker monsters. At this point, I would suggest moving to Dagger, especially if you plan on subbing Ninja starting then. The reason is because your "D" skill in Hand-to-Hand becomes more noticeable, and you miss a lot more. As a Dancer, you probably won't be using a lot of weapon skills anyway. Even when Lv.34 rolls around and you finally get Viper Bite, it's still not a good idea to waste your TP. Viper Bite is actually quite weak without Sneak Attack anyway. If you really want to join in skillchains, you can use Wild Flourish once you hit Lv.60 to open them for another party member. The only exception to this rule is if you don't use a lot of Waltzes and weapon skills would be better for you to use. Increasing weapon skill damage with Building Flourish and then using Wild Flourish can open a skillchain for a weapon skill such as Cyclone or Dancing Edge. In terms of weapon choices, it's best to use higher-damage Daggers as opposed to lower-delay Daggers. Hitting faster can mean more TP, but with that higher damage you have a lower chance of hitting for zero, which would equate to no TP gain. Armor * Not surprisingly, Dancers have a very similar set of armor as Thief, in that they can wear harness armor, leather armor, and a lot of cloth armor. Also like Thief, they don’t get any access to heavy armor like plate or scale. That being said, they can’t play meat shield nearly as well as a job like Paladin or Warrior, but with harness and leather, they can still do fairly well once they get their first Flourish (Animated Flourish at Lv.20, a Provoke). Charisma gear is recommended for macroing-in for Waltz use, and vitality if you're tanking. Both stats will return a nicer HP boost with Waltzes. If attempting to tank, evasion gear is recommended first, followed by accuracy. At higher levels, Haste gear will begin to be top priority. Anything that boosts Store TP is nice too. Rajas Ring is suggested (but good luck getting one). Having dexterity or accuracy-boosting equipment is also very nice. Evasion is very useful too, for tanking purposes. Battle Gloves can be very nice here. Dancers tend to use Thief-oriented gear until Lv.50, when they start getting different equipment. The most prominent being Tiger armor and pieces from the Tabin Jupon Set. Walkthrough Advanced Job Quest *Talk to the female Hume NPC named Laila in Upper Jeuno G-7. Then talk to the Mithra NPC, Rhea, dancing beside her. Go to Southern San d’Oria to the Lion Springs Tavern near the Mog House and talk to the first NPC on the right, Valderotaux. Choose any of the options provided in any order you'd like, and keep doing so till the cutscene ends. *Go back and talk to Rhea in Upper Jeuno. After you've spoken to her, travel to Jugner Forest (S) to the pond at I-5 (this spot is best approached via the Batallia Downs maw, since it's on the east side of an insurmountable fence). Click on the “Glowing Pebbles” and you will receive another cut-scene. Finally, head back to Laila in Upper Jeuno and talk to her. Congratulations! You can now become a Dancer. Soloing 1-10 * Your two best choices in terms of support jobs for these levels are either Monk or White Mage. If you sub Monk, use hand-to-hand weapons as you’ll get a boost in attack speed, which slightly makes up for the lack of base skill. If you choose a White Mage sub, you’ll get longer survivability and overall lower downtime, but less attack speed with hand-to-hand. In this situation, both sword and hand-to-hand can be useful. Other useful support jobs at this level are Blue Mage for Pollen, which can cure for more than a White Mage's Cure, as well as providing slightly more survivability and damage output, and Puppetmaster with the Stormwaker frame and Soulsoother head. By level five, you finally get your first dance, Drain Samba. Sambas have a neat effect. How it works is after you dance, you are given a status effect where your next hit gives your target a negative effect called Drain Daze. This effect has an incredibly short duration of about five seconds, but the timer will reset itself every time you successfully land a hit. Everyone within your party will enjoy the effects of endrain as long as you continue to successfully strike the mob. If you miss too many times in a row, the monster's Drain Daze effect will wear off and will not return until you strike it again while under the effect of Drain Samba. Valkurm 10-20 * This is when you can begin partying with other players. You should always have a decent setup. More party members is always nice, but after level 15, Dancer performs remarkably well with smaller groups fighting against slightly weaker monsters. At this point, your best bet would still be to sub either Monk or White Mage and use either hand-to-hand or sword. From 10-14 a Dancer's role in most parties will be as a standard Damage dealer. Level fifteen is when you get your next job-specific ability: a new kind of dance called a Waltz. Curing Waltz heals a target party member for a certain amount of HP (approximately 70) for the small price of 20 TP. Waltz opens up the possibility of being healer or tank for a party. Suggested food would be something along the lines of attack at this level. A lot of monsters have a lot of defense, especially Pugils and Crabs for 13-20, so beware of hitting for 0. Your main problem is at these levels is that accuracy food isn't very effective (Jack-o'-Lanterns give -10 CHR, but this only equates to approximately 2 or 3 less HP per Waltz). I would suggest the oh-so-useful Meat Mithkabobs or Sausage. After gaining level 15 and Curing Waltz, a DNC/WAR can be a very effective tank. Using its naturally high evasion, Provoke, and the aforementioned Waltz, Dancer can hold hate pretty easily, while saving a healer a large chunk of MP. Though great in parties, Dancer remains a strong soloer during these levels, from 10-14 a Dancer can kill very large numbers of EP-DC mobs between rests. Upon achieving 15 and Curing Waltz, a decently equipped DNC/MNK can solo EM-T's without stopping. Mid-levels 20-40 * Right at level twenty is when you learn your first Step and Flourish. A Step is basically a mild enfeeble that can be stacked up to five times, each time consuming TP. Another big thing about Steps is that they reward you with finishing moves, which aren’t super-powered weapon skills despite what it sounds like. What a finishing move is is more like a finishing pose (a Flourish). You consume finishing moves to perform Flourishes, which are effective (yet sometimes inaccurate) support abilities for your party. For example, the Lv.20 Step is Quickstep which lowers the target’s evasion, and the Lv.20 Flourish is Animated Flourish, which is your version of Provoke. Level twenty-five is one of Dancer’s favourite levels because it gets something new in all three main dances: a new Samba (Aspir Samba), a new Waltz (Divine Waltz), and your first Jig (Spectral Jig). All Sambas work the same; Aspir just drains MP instead of HP (though it only works on monsters that have MP). Divine Waltz is Dancer’s “Curaga”, in that it heals in an area effect. Spectral Jig is simply a self-targeted Sneak and Invisible. In these mid-levels, you also get one more Samba, one more Waltz, two new Steps, and two new Flourishes. Right around 25 and up is when a Dancer may want to consider the change to daggers, as TP grows in importance, and the D skill in H2H and Sword begins to show. Quickstep also has an accuracy rate based off of your standard melee accuracy, so the boost in accuracy actually aids a Dancer's abilities in many ways. Using Quickstep and Animated Flourish, a Dancer can continue to tank through Qufim and Yhoator. However, if tanking is attempted, Ninja sub and good evasion/accuracy gear are highly recommended. Your AF Weapon * Dancer's AF weapon is actually the only throwing AF weapon in the game, which is strange because a lot of other jobs can effectively use them. Dancer has a C+ in throwing skill, so if it's anywhere near cap, you can effectively pull with an occasional hit. This weapon doesn't have much in terms of raw damage over time, but what it lacks in that is its +3 to charisma, potentially helping your Waltzes by a fair bit. And since you can't put anything really 'better' in that slot, it's great to use pretty much long throughout the game. That is, unless you find yourself with enough charisma, and you could do with your RSE sachets. * Walkthrough Coming Soon Mid-High Levels 40-60 * These levels are played similar to the last number of levels. At level 40, Dancer attains its most useful Flourish, "Reverse Flourish". Using Reverse Flourish, a Dancer gets all of the TP he or she spent on enfeebling steps back, plus some extra. Dancers should be spamming their steps every 15 seconds at this point, particularly Quickstep, and using Reverse Flourish to aid with TP build. You finally get a weapon skill worthy of using by Lv.43, Cyclone, though using weapon skills is pretty situational, and should only be used when your party doesn't need you to spam Curing Waltz or the like. Be aware, too, that Cyclone is an AoE weapon skill, and should not be used in crowded camps. By these levels, you get another useful Flourish called "Building Flourish" that boosts your next weapon skill's damage up to 30%. And by Lv.60, you can start opening skillchains with "Wild Flourish." This means that at Lv.60, you can start performing self-skillchains. Using Building Flourish and then Wild Flourish, then going into Cyclone could mean a high-damage Detonation skillchain that can be great for magic bursting on wind-weak monsters. You'll love Lv.55, because at this level you get your second (and final) Jig. Chocobo Jig allows for 25% faster movement speed at no TP cost. This means an almost perpetual boost to movement speed. Your Artifact Armor * ...Is a very all-round solid set of equipment for a well-rounded job. Your first piece is for Lv.52, your hand pieces. Your Bangles enhance dexterity and agility, while providing HP and increasing the accuracy to your Steps. Even if you don't use these for their awesome stats, they're great to macro-in for Steps. Next is your Lv.54 headpiece. The Tiara has a beautiful red flower attached, and provides the Dancer with HP and 4 charisma. On top of this, it lowers enmity by 2 and increases the duration of your Samba dances, always a bonus. Dancer Shoes come up at Lv.56, providing further HP, some attack, a fair bit of evasion, and increasing the duration of your Jigs. Your Lv.58 Tights (pants) are probably the least dazzling pieces of your AF, but are still great. They provide 3 accuracy, 3 charisma, and another enmity down buff. Finally, your AF body piece grants the Dancer strength, dexterity, more HP, an enmity-down, and best of all, a Waltz potency increase by 10%. This set of equipment greatly enhances every aspect of your job, and can put you over the top in a lot of party positions. High Levels 60-75 * These last fifteen levels shouldn't differ at all from the last section, except that now you'll have Dancing Edge, and by Lv.73, Evisceration. Again, only use weapon skills when you know your party doesn't need you to spam TP on anything else. Wild Flourish into Evisceration makes Transfixion, which is a light-based skillchain (though not a Light skillchain). Otherwise, you get one last Curing Waltz and one last Drain Samba. By these levels, a Samurai support job might be useful, as it gives a nice bonus to TP and its job ability Meditate would really benefit you as a TP-using job. End-Game * (Dynamis, Limbus, Salvage, merit parties, etc.) Support Jobs Warrior * Could be a viable support job until 20, especially as Galka or Elvaan, since they have the highest possibility of being the better Dancer-tanks. Provoke, Defense Bonus, and Warrior's naturally high STR and DEX could always be handy. At level 25 (50, when subbed), Warrior gets the job trait "Double Attack", which activates with an approximately 10% chance to give you a second attack, thus giving you more TP. Even though Ninja's Dual Wield lowers delay, it doesn't increase TP gain as much as double attack would, as TP gain is proportional to delay. Having the Double Attack trait is nice for the extra TP gain, when it kicks in. Monk * A perfect choice for people starting off at low-level. Since Dancer's highest combat skill is dagger, which isn’t very effective until higher levels, you’re better off using either sword or hand-to-hand. Hand-to-hand is granted an attack speed bonus with a MNK support job at Lv.1. Also, a Monk support job increases a Dancer’s survivability with its naturally high vitality and HP. Boost and Dodge are a nice bonus too. I soloed Dancer from 1 to 10 using this support job and a single Jack-o'-Lantern. The accuracy boost from it allowed me to hit Lv.2 in twenty seconds, and seriously helped me keep my HP at maximum with Drain Samba. I never had to rest after Lv.5. White Mage * A more support-role support job as it gives the user access to all sorts of cures, enfeebles, enhancements, and other spells like the ever-loved Poisona. However, this support job involves resting, and if you don't have Signet or Sigil or are in an Aht Urhgan zone, you'll never be able to use it. Waltzes are better than a support job's Cures anyway, especially with such limited MP. Thief * High accuracy and evasion always benefit Dancer. By Lv.30 you get Sneak Attack, which allows you to deal more damage and get more TP if you’re lucky. A nice bonus of Sneak Attack is that it is a guaranteed hit, which means that if you use it in conjunction with one of your Steps, that step will always land. Thief as a support job can also be a good means of acquiring money because of Treasure Hunter and Gilfinder. Lv.30 also grants a bonus to dagger through the Dagger Belt, which adds 5 points to your Dagger Skill rating when using this subjob. Samurai * Store TP and Meditate help the Dancer’s sought-after TP stay at a high level. Unfortunately, Dancer gets no two-handed weapons, so Hasso and Seigan have no effect. Samurai as a sub-job is good for those Dancers who rely on Waltzes a lot to keep the party in tip-top shape, or who wish to weapon skill often. Ninja * Ninja as a support job further helps with the overall 'tank' nature of Dancer. Since at Lv.15 Dancer gets a healing ability, and a Provoke at Lv.20, Dancer can be seen as an evasive PLD/NIN with its own Provoke ability. Subbing Ninja gives further evasion and even more survivability with Utsusemi: Ichi. Dances cannot be interrupted either, so if the Dancer takes too much damage, he or she can simply Waltz their HP back. Dancer's evasion almost rivals that of a Thief's, so losing shadows too fast isn't a problem. Another consideration for a Ninja support job is the elemental ninjutsu. The damage from the elemental ninjutsu can be resisted, however the resistance down can not. A highly effective use is to use the ninjutsu to lower the mobs resistance right before a skillchain. You can also aid the mages in nuking by doing so. Corsair * With Phantom Roll on a one-minute recast timer, a well-timed Dancer can buff the party with a roll like Hunter’s Roll for accuracy, and then just before the battle is over, switch over to Corsair’s Roll which gives an experience point bonus. Though possibly not as effective as other support job choices, it can still work nicely. Hunter’s Roll gives an average of 15 accuracy to the entire party when subbed, as long as you don't Double-Up on anything above a 6. Dragoon * A support job often overlooked because of its inability to summon its wyvern while subbed. However, Dragoon gets the job trait Attack Bonus, which will help for damage dealt with puny daggers, as well as the job ability Jump. Jump can be used effectively to keep TP gain high. The Wyvern Earring, though expensive, gives a 5% Haste bonus which doesn't reduce TP gain per hit like Dual Wield does. The Wyvern Mantle is a very good back piece for the Dancer who wants to deal extra damage. A wise choice for anyone with Dragoon. Beastmaster * Generally used the other way around, but it can be efficient for soloing or for partying in a wide level range area. Since Dancer has relatively high charisma, you can easily Charm a decent challenge or even match monster and keep it with you until it's ready to be re-charmed. Also, since Beastmaster will enhance your charisma even more, it will help your Waltzes a bit. Your Charm won't suffer, but you won't get the same amount of useful abilities and traits as a Beastmaster main job would. Just remember that it is strongly believed that your Charm success rate is influenced by your Beastmaster's main job level, meaning if you want to take this support job all the way to 75, your Beastmaster should be Lv.75 as well. Blue Mage * At Lv.15, you get your first Curing Waltz, which pulls a lot of hate. Cocoon will help with its 50% defense boost. This makes Blue Mage a viable support job for tanking for some levels. At Lv.20 when you get Animated Flourish (Provoke), you will be better able to hold hate in parties. You will also get access to a few "killer" traits, which can help for soloing and/or tanking, depending on the situation. Beyond this, there are many useful job traits and spells. Keep in mind, though, direct-damage and most enfeebling spells will be super inaccurate due to the halved Blue Magic skill. Later on, though, you'd be much better off subbing Ninja for tanking. Overview of Job Abilities, Job Traits, and Spells Your Two-Hour Ability *Trance is unbelievably useful. What it does is simply takes away all TP cost for dances and steps, meaning you can heal someone or enfeeble the monster for absolutely no cost whatsoever. It’s basically like Black Mage’s Manafont two-hour ability. Though cool-down are unaffected, that shouldn’t be too big of a problem. It is definitely very good for getting out of sticky situations and should be saved for such. Since it has a whole one-minute duration, which is longer than most two-hours’ durations, it frees the Dancer up for a lot of Waltzes and Steps, and allows for easy use of Sambas if necessary. Job Abilities *Sambas are first acquired at Lv.5 in the form of Drain Samba I. After it’s used, the next monster you hit will be enfeebled with “Drain Daze” that will allow all party members attacking it to drain a small amount of HP from the target. If you do not hit the target at least once within five seconds of the last hit, Drain Daze will wear off until the next time you hit the target. There are three tiers of Drain Samba, each draining a larger amount of HP per hit. There are two tiers of Aspir Sambas, which activate the same way as Drain Samba, but drain MP instead of HP. Please note that Aspir Samba will only work on monsters that have MP. Also, like all forms of Drain and Aspir, they will not affect undead. A third Samba you acquire is Haste Samba, which gives everyone attacking the monster the effect of Haste+5%, though this only affects weapon delay and not recast timers. Note that only one Daze can be active on a monster at any given time. *Waltzes are Dancer’s healing ‘magic’. They consume TP (instead of MP) to restore a party member’s HP, restore the whole party’s HP, or remove a harmful effect. Curing Waltz has four tiers, each of which acts as a single-target cure. Divine Waltz heals the entire party for a small amount of HP. Healing Waltz removes anything Erase can remove, as well as individual effects such as Paralysis or Poison. Curing Waltzes seem to be largely affected by the target's vitality and the user's charisma. The formula for Curing Waltz I is (((target's vitality + caster's charisma)/4)+60). *Steps are single-target enfeebles including Quickstep, which lowers the target’s evasion, Box Step, which lowers the target’s defense, and Stutter Step, which lowers the target’s magic resistance. Starting at Lv.20 with Quickstep, these dances can also stack up to five times, each time giving the user “finishing moves” which can then be used for Flourishes. *Flourishes come in two sets aptly named “Flourishes I” and “Flourishes II”. They are divided into two sets because each has its own recast timer. Also, the first set of Flourishes is an additional enfeeble: 'Animated' being a form of “Provoke”, 'Desperate' being an inaccurate form of “Weight”, and 'Violent' an inaccurate form of “Stun”. The second set behave more like enhancements. 'Reverse' restores TP, 'Building' makes your next weapon skill more potent, and 'Wild' plays the part of a weapon skill by opening a skillchain, but not doing any damage on its own. Flourishes consume “finishing moves”, which are earned by using Steps. *Jigs are fancy dances that directly enhance you and do not use TP. There are only two Jigs so far. One, Spectral Jig, is acquired at Lv.25 and gives a Sneak and Invisible effect, and the other, Chocobo Jig, at Lv.55 that enhances movement speed. Job Traits *Evasion Bonus is first earned at Lv.15. Dancer is evasive enough as it is without a bonus of +10 to evasion, but this just further helps the point. It makes Dancer more capable of keeping the monster’s attention without dying, and thus making Dancer a decent backup tank (especially at Lv.20, when Animated Flourish is usable). At levels 45 and 75, Dancer gains Evasion Bonus II and III, which equates to +22 and +35 evasion respectively. *Resist Slow is one in the line of ‘Resist’ job traits that allow the player to possibly resist an effect, in this case, slow. It is acquired at Lv.20. Be it through a monster’s attack or an opposing spell, you may have the chance to completely resist it. Even if that is not the case, Resist Slow will help to lower the duration of the negative status effect. *Subtle Blow allows the Dancer to spend more time engaged battle without worrying about giving the target monster too much TP with his or her weapons, and is attributed at Lv.25. As a player feeding TP to a monster is the fastest way it gets TP, this slows down the process slightly, making up for a Dancer’s slightly lower attack damage by also giving less TP to the monster. The first tier of Subtle Blow at 25 gives the target 5% less TP than it would ordinarily gain, and Subtle Blow II and III, which come in at 45 and 65, grant 10% and 15% less TP to the target. *Accuracy Bonus at Lv.30 will allow the Dancer to stay in the fray and help keep Samba’s Daze effects up with a more frequent stream of hits. Accuracy bonus is a loved job trait by all damage-dealing jobs, since many like to pick equipment that focuses more on damage, which is what you can do with the +10 accuracy under your belt. At 60, Dancer gains Accuracy Bonus II, which gives an additional +12 accuracy for a total of +22 accuracy.